When the season is over, it is not the time to ignore a keeper team until next spring. With a few post season chores, an owner can put themselves in better position for next season.

The first item is to find players that owners may covet this up coming season, but were useless this past season. They could have been injured or in the minors. I previously looked at players on the DL that can be picked up as potential keepers for next season (more suggestions in the comments).

The second group of players to target are minor league prospects. Some owners irrationally love them. Use them when making trades with these owners. A few sources released mid season prospect lists to give an idea of what prospects may be the most desirable. Besides using prospect lists, look to the rosters of the Arizona Fall League for inspiration. After the World Series is over, it will be the only baseball going on, so it will get plenty of coverage. A few players will start to get over hyped.

If you are torn between 2 prospects, follow these two rules:

1. Take the hitter. On average, they are more valuable in the long run.
2. Take the player closer to the majors. An owner wants the player to play. They are not wanting someone to look pretty on the bench.

After targeting a few players, it is time to bump the dead weight off your team. These players will not be keepers on any team and are usually non-save relievers and bench players. They were kept to make sure pitching and hitting slots were full during the season, but they are useless now. No one is going to trade for or keep them with dozens of similar players available on the waiver wire. Start filling your roster with some possible trade targets and dump this dead weight.

Next, create a spreadsheet of the players on all the teams. It will take a bit of time, but it is well worth the effort. Go through and designate what you think each team should keep. I begin ranking, linking articles or just jotting a few personal notes on certain players. An owner should then have a good idea of players available in the draft and which owners have an abundance or lack of players you desire. An owner can then begin to target other owners with their roster needs and wants.

After that, post and/or email the type of players you are looking to pick up. Don’t get too specific now, just something like, “I am looking to move SP for IF help”. I wouldn’t push too hard to make trades now since owners are tired after the long season. Owners know you are willing to trade and know your wants. They can contact you once they look at their rosters later.

Finally, check up on your league 2 to 3 times a week during the off season. The main item to look for are players being dump to the waiver wire that are better than the ones on your team. Pick them up. Also, teams may be posting messages of players they are looking to trade. The league doesn’t need to be check every day, but don’t be a stranger.

The season has ended and it is time to take a break from your keeper league. Just spending a hour or two after the season is over will pay dividends later. Around the winter meetings, action will pick up again. Until then, know that your team is in good shape to improve for next season.

With the regular season ending on a Wednesday, many leagues are having a 10-day week to end the year. Check your league’s rules to see how you are accounting for the last week! This list will assume the 10-day week.

Trevor Cahill – In 2010, Cahill lived a charmed life with a .236 BABIP. Fortune smiled upon Cahill once again as he began this year 6-0 with a .257 BABIP. But since May 15th, Cahill is 5-13 with a 5.33 ERA and a .318 BABIP. For the season, Cahill now has a 4.32 ERA and a .299 BABIP. And the only reason his ERA is that low is because of his home park, where Cahill’s ERA is over two and a half runs lower than his road mark. Cahill has one home and one road start, but his home game is against TEX. After handling the Rangers twice during his 6-0 start, Cahill has allowed 10 ER in 20 IP in his last three starts against them. Give Cahill a spot on the bench this week.

Edwin Jackson – By both FIP and xFIP, Jackson has pitched worse since his trade to the Cardinals but his results have been better, as he sports a 5-2 record with a 3.24 ERA in the National League. Jackson has enjoyed Busch Stadium, where he is 3-0 with a 2.41 ERA in six starts. Overall, he has eight Quality Starts in 10 games for St. Louis, with only a poor outing in Milwaukee where he allowed 4 HR dragging down his numbers. This week he gets home starts against the Mets and Cubs. Get Jackson into your lineup this week.

Mat Latos – While he has not pitched as well as last year, a 3.62 xFIP is still a good number and should have resulted in more than 7 Wins in 29 starts. In his last nine games, Latos has a 3.00 ERA with 15 BB and 55 Ks in 60 IP yet is only 2-4 in that span. Some might be scared off from starting Latos due to the road start in Colorado, but he has been decent in two starts this year in Coors (11 IP, 5 ER, .729 OPS against). Ride the hot hand and hope Latos breaks into the win column in one of his two starts this week.

Michael Pineda – After struggling through a rough patch right around the All-Star break in which he had a 7.64 ERA with 8 HR in 33 IP, Pineda has rebounded with four straight Quality Starts, with just 2 HR in 26 IP. The matchups are favorable for Pineda, as he has a road start in MIN and a home start versus OAK. The Twins and Athletics are the two bottom teams in the AL in HR. If you jumped off the bandwagon after his poor stretch, it’s time to get Pineda back in the lineup.

Javier Vazquez – When Vazquez followed up last year’s 5.32 ERA with a 3-6, 7.09 ERA start to 2011, it looked like he was done as a useful fantasy player, and perhaps as an MLB pitcher, too. But from mid-June forward, he has been a strong pitcher. In that span, covering 16 games and 101.2 IP, Vazquez has 18 BB, 93 Ks and 9 HR. In his rough stretch to start the year, Vazquez had 31 BB and 11 HR in 66 IP. On his May 15th start, Vazquez averaged 88.4 with his fastball and had just 3 swinging strikes in 90 pitches thrown. In his last outing, he averaged 91.3 with his fastball and had 10 swinging strikes in 113 pitches.

He’s a different pitcher now than he was earlier in the season. Vazquez has two home starts this week and he has a 3.61 xFIP with a 9.25 K/9 at Sun Life Stadium. And the pitching matchups are favorable, too. It all adds up to having Vazquez in the starting lineup.

Other scheduled two-start pitchers in Week 25 are listed below. Please remember that these are projected pitchers and changes can and will happen between now and next week.

Lee, Sabathia, Halladay, Haren, Kershaw, Shields, Weaver, Lincecum, Wilson, Kennedy, Greinke, Lester, D. Hudson, T. Hudson, Marcum, Carpenter, Bumgarner, Jimenez, E. Santana, Worley, Scherzer, Romero, G. Gonzalez, Garza, Fister, Beckett, Hellickson, Oswalt, W. Rodriguez, A. Sanchez, Vogelsong, Lewis, Kuroda, J. Garcia, Holland, Lohse, Nova, Chacin, Buehrle, Lilly, Niemann, Nolasco, Floyd, Ogando, Collmenter, Stauffer, Dickey, Colon, Porcello, Morrow, McCarthy, Luebke, Norris, Lowe, Humber, Harden, Capuano, Burnett, Lackey, Minor, Hughes, Myers, Bailey, Davis, Carmona, Morton, Wells, Karstens, Arroyo, Britton, Westbrook, Vargas, Pavano, Cecil, Lannan, Guthrie, Alvarez, Surkamp, Narveson, Pelfrey, Pineiro, Volquez, Miley, Eveland, Williams, White, Penny, Paulino, Beavan, Huff, Hunter, Millwood, Sosa, Happ, Delgado, Volstad, Wang, LeBlanc, Simon, Lopez, Gomez, Furbush, Slowey, Ohlendorf, Milone, Cook, Swarzak, McGowan, Hendriks, Diamond, Coleman, Schwinden, Axelrod.

Check back Sunday night for an update of two-start pitchers.

Now I want to provide some accountability and check in and see how previous recommendations turned out. There needs to be a two-week lag, since last week’s pitchers have not completed their second start yet. So here are Week 23 pitchers and how they fared.

Collmenter – Advised to sit. 6 Ks, 6.10 ERA, 1.452 WHIP, 10.1 IP, 7 ER
Garcia – Advised to start. 4 Ks, 14.09 ERA, 2.478 WHIP, 7.2 IP, 12 ER
Harden – Advised to sit. 10 Ks, 7.20 ERA, 1.800 WHIP, 5 IP, 4 ER
Vazquez – Advised to start. 2 W, 14 Ks, 0.69 ERA, 0.846 WHIP, 14 IP, 3 ER
Willis – Advised to start. 8 Ks, 5.14 ERA, 1.571 WHIP, 7 IP, 4 ER

Let’s continue looking ahead to the 2012 fantasy baseball season by highlighting the potential impact rookies at each position. Why? Because it’s never too early to begin thinking about next year, even if you’re still trying to win your league right now. And for those of you in keeper leagues, particularly deeper ones, these primers will be especially helpful, because you’ll find out which young players may be worth snatching up now — before other owners get a clue — so you can hang onto them next season, when their value kicks in. Think of it like an investment requiring only a little up-front cost that could pay off big in the near future.

Much like my Mining the Minors columns on this site, which focus on current-season impact more than long-term upside, these 2012 rookie primers are meant for players who will fulfill or are expected to fulfill their rookiedom next year. Also much like my MTM work, the point here is to find the right mix of opportunity and talent, so that you’re picking up a player who can contribute, either in a starting role or as a reserve, from Day 1 or soon thereafter. Chances are, I’ll hit on many of these same players in depth at some point in future Mining the Minors columns, but for now, it’s good to get ahead of the curve with a snapshot of the talent at each position.

To give you a brief idea of just how this sort of thing can be worthwhile, I’m in two deep keeper leagues, one AL-only and one NL-only, and around this time last year, I picked up Mark Trumbo, Jordan Walden and Brandon Beachy. Worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Click on the position to see previous primers: Catchers, First Base, Second Base, Third Base, Shortstop

Up next? Outfielders.

Read the rest of this entry »

Marco Scutaro (Yahoo: 29 percent owned, ESPN: 19 percent owned)

While the Red Sox seem to be wilting a bit in the season’s final days, Marco Scutaro is trending in the opposite direction. After missing a week of action in mid-August due to a stiff back, Scutaro has been consistently in the lineup and has been hitting well ever since. His .325/.383/.482 line since his return actually undersells how good he’s been lately, as he has hit .436/.489/.641 in the 10 games he has started since September 1.

His recent run of great form is, as many runs of great form are, built on an inflated BABIP — .425 over the last 12 games — but there’s more to Scutaro’s success than simply getting luckier of late. His strikeouts have decreased steadily in the second half of the season, which means he’s putting the ball into play more often, which, in turn, made his spike in BABIP even better for owners.

While Scutaro won’t bat .425 on balls in play forever, his first half BABIP of .267 was due to rise, and he is racking up line drives at a better than average rate. It would not surprise me to see his September BABIP above .300 at month’s end, provided his line-drive rate doesn’t suddenly plummet. As long as that doesn’t happen, his BA will be an asset to anyone in need of a MI, but he should also contribute in both R and a few RBI.

Allen Craig (Yahoo: 3 percent owned, ESPN: 2 percent owned)

We have now reached the point of the season where any injury, no matter how trifling it may seem, could be a season-ending injury. So it is with the hand injury Matt Holliday suffered late in Tuesday night’s game. If this were June or July, Holliday would take a few days off to let the swelling subside, then the team would reevaluate to see if he needed a stay on the disabled list, but considering that the time it’s going to take for the swelling to go down equals about half the remaining games, the Cards may well choose to shut Holliday down for the year.

The beneficiary of St. Louis’ left field vacancy is likely to be Allen Craig, another of the Cardinals young players whose season has been something of a jumble due to injuries. Craig missed 15 days early in the season with a strained groin, then a subsequent 63 days in the summer with a knee contusion. In his one full, healthy month, Craig started 17 games and hit .350/.420/.550. Obviously we can’t simply extrapolate that month out and say what a full season would look like, but the fact remains that when Craig has been healthy and in the lineup, he has been productive for the Cards.

Craig hit fifth on Wednesday, behind Pujols and Berkman in the heart of the Cardinals’ order. If Tony LaRussa continues to put him in that spot, it bodes well for his RBI chances as pitchers could certainly pitch around one or both of the other two — depending on the situation — to face Craig. If he can take advantage of those opportunities, his numbers will be strong heading into the end of the season. He also offers lineup versatility as he appeared in eight games at second base earlier in the year.

There is one caveat with Craig. The Cardinals are 4.5 games behind the Braves in the wild card race and just 5.5 behind the Brewers in the divisional race. Holliday is almost certain to miss the entire series against the Phillies, but if the team can gain ground on either opponent, setting up a real race over the last 12 games of the season, there will be a real incentive to get Holliday back. The extent of Holliday’s injury is definitely a factor here as well, but if the Cardinals are within 2-3 games of the Braves with a week to play and Holliday is anything resembling healthy, it may be hard to keep him off the field. In that case, Craig’s playing time becomes spotty once again. I don’t find this scenario particularly likely, but it’s worth watching if you choose to pick up Craig.

The Kansas City Royals, as you well know by now, are chock-full of talented youngsters. It wasn’t more than a couple seasons ago that one of those talented youngsters was Luke Hochevar, their first round pick in 2006. And while many predicted big things for the lanky kid out of the University of Tennessee, he has quickly become the captain for the quad-A starting pitching corps as his talent in the minors simply never translated to the major leagues.

2011 was looking much the same for Hochevar, but something peculiar started happening just before the All-Star Break.

Read the rest of this entry »

As Eno said in his Stat Grabs piece the other day, there’s no time and probably no chance to grab a well-rounded player off your waiver wire.  We are officially at the midway point here in the final month of the season and those fighting for the title in their roto leagues or are battling in a late championship week in their head to head league are probably looking for specific category help.   Catchers aren’t usually the biggest contributors in the game, but for fantasy purposes, there are probably enough out there that are finishing strongly and can kick in a little assistance here and there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I will take a look at another pitcher who given his current statistics, will likely be undervalued in 2012. Of course, there’s always the chance our pitcher in the spotlight finishes off the season with shutouts, but we’ll assume his stats change little through season’s end.

Read the rest of this entry »

After struggling in his past few outings, it appears that Alexi Ogando is going to pitch the rest of the way out of the bullpen. Luckily for you, I have some thoughts.

– The Rangers haven’t made a final decision on this matter yet, but I’m willing to bet they ultimately decide to bulk up the bullpen instead of letting Ogando struggle in the rotation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Trout (8% ESPN, 12% Yahoo) – Coming into the season, Mike was considered one of the top prospects in baseball. Since starting his first game on July 8th, he has struggled a bit in the majors by producing a slash line of 0.220/0.282/0.420. Fantasy owners have noticed his struggles and his ownership rate has dropped to 8% in ESPN leagues and 12% in Yahoo leagues. Several factors point to him being a valuable assest over the last few weeks of the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Randy Wells

Not a lot has gone to plan for the Cubs this season. By the All-Star break, they were out of contact with the division leaders and nearly 20 games below .500 having failed to finish any of the season’s first three months at or better than even keeled.

Their mess started early when Andrew Cashner and Randy Wells hit the disabled list on back-to-back days in early April, but Wells’ return 53 days later didn’t help matters much at all. In his 11 starts from his return on May 28 to the end of July, Wells gave the Cubs just two quality starts and the team went just 3-8 when he was on the mound. Opponents hit .311/.370/.481 for an OPS of .851, or roughly the same OPS as Adrian Beltre or Todd Helton.

Since Aug. 1, Wells has looked for all the world like a completely different pitcher. The Cubs have gone 7-1 in his starts, and opponents are hitting just .213/.257/.366 for an OPS of .623, or somewhere between the OPS of Jason Bartlett and Alex Gonzalez. It’s clear that the Cubs prefer this version of Wells, and owners do as well, but is Dr. Jekyll here to stay or is Mr. Hyde waiting in the wings?

Hyde, you’re on in 5.

Wells’ WHIP in August was 0.91 because one of the lowest BABIPs I’ve seen in a while: .181, which is so obviously unsustainable, it hardly bears mentioning. He induced a large amount of infield flies — a season-best 13.2 percent — a 13.2 percent increase from his July rate. Wells is a groundball pitcher at heart and that’s not going to change in the season’s last month. As he gets back to inducing grounders and his BABIP returns to non-ridiculous levels, his results should normalize as well. He isn’t as bad as he looked in July or as good as he looked in August, but somewhere pleasantly between.

Mike Minor

The Braves like Mike Minor, with good reason, and they absolutely had designs on a playoff run this season, but it seems fair to guess that they didn’t think Minor would be contributing to that goal quite to this level. Injuries are the great equalizer and the Braves are quite fortunate that they had Minor and Brandon Beachy waiting in the wings to pick up the slack for Tommy Hanson and Jair Jurrjens.

In a purely baseball sense, Minor may not be the Braves’ first choice for the playoff roster, but he’s a totally usable piece. He can either start a non-elimination game in the latter part of a series or he can be plugged in, in long relief if a starter clearly doesn’t have it early in a game. He’s succeeded in giving the Braves winnable games nearly ever time he takes the mound; they’re 5-1 in his starts since he rejoined the rotation on Aug. 3. For a supplementary starter, that’s as good as anyone can reasonably expect.

From a fantasy perspective, Minor’s biggest weakness right now isn’t category specific. He’s not giving up a ton of runs, he’s not allowing a ton of base-runners, and he is notching a reasonable number of strikeouts, but he’s just not going deep into games. Minor hasn’t seen the seventh inning since his recall, which means the 3-4 runs he’s giving up in nearly every outing are hitting his ERA harder than they ought to be.

In NL-Only and even in deep mixed, I like Minor as a back-end starter, but I’m getting the sense that his ability to deliver quality outings and the Braves’ performance in those starts is artificially inflating his value. Right now, he is absolutely more valuable to the Braves than he is to your fantasy team.